While attending a recent seminar in Las Vegas, I found myself in a room with horrible Internet connectivity. As someone who actively monitors and manages hundreds of websites, this used to really panic me. Yet, I calmly sat through many of the seminar presentations, knowing that all of my customer service concerns were being handled very promptly.

Let me explain my set-up, and you'll understand why customer service is so easy for me now.

I should begin though by pointing out that, as your online business starts to grow, keeping up with the customer service issues is often the most challenging part of running your business.

Just keeping up with all of the emails can be nearly impossible!

Like many online marketers, I decided to outsource customer service, but also maintain positive control. I maintain my own helpdesk (customer service center) where a few assistants take care of 95% of issues within minutes of them arising.

I route a major percentage of communications through my helpdesk because that puts everything all in one place. I have a threaded record of many exchanges, stored in a secure database, so I can always go back and look up the details later.

I am a bit of a "control freak" so I haven't put the life of my business totally into the hands of strangers. I have a few customer support assistants that I know fairly well. I know that they are trustworthy, understand my business, and have good judgement.

I use a help desk software, called Three Pillars Help Desk, but there are other comparable support desk packages. At under $100, this is an amazingly feature-rich piece of software though.

The typical customer service interaction is as follows:

1) A customer has a question, lost a download, needs a software install, wants to joint venture with me, can't get a file to open properly, etc.... they visit my help desk and fill out a help ticket.

I DON'T require them to register. They just fill out the ticket, and they are entered into the system, receiving an email confirmation. Actually, before they submit the ticket, they are encouraged to peruse the "frequently asked questions" (FAQ) built right into the help desk. Often, the answer to their concern is right there and they don't even need to file a help ticket.

2) As soon as a help ticket is filed, admin assistants assigned to that "category" of ticket, receive a desktop notification that a new ticket has been filed. They get an audible chime, as well as a desktop icon that tells them how many tickets are awaiting responses.

I have my help desk set up so that I get these same, notifications. I have it set to check every 15 minutes, so I can see if any tickets go unanswered for too long. Usually, my tech support is fairly fast though.

3) Admin assistants log into the admin control panel, using their unique admin log-ins, and respond to the tickets in categories assigned to them. They don't see, and can't respond to tickets in categories not assigned to them.

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